On raising my kids on screans and candy

Friday night driving by the river, bight golden moon full and round in the sky. I'm alone for the first time in what seems like weeks. I'm driving to pick up my boys from a Lego party and stealing a few moments to dictate my thoughts as I drive through the sweet little town of Oregon city full of lights and the glitter of Christmas. There are bright windows with store displays and people all over, yet I feel isolated. I talk to so few people in my small circle of influence. I go outside so seldom. I order everything online to avoid the drives and the stores. Today I had a primary meeting and by the end Juniper was a wreck needing a nap and I rushed out as quickly as possible. While I might have had a moment to socialize with a group of women, I had to rush out. One of the women said, she was sorry that it's so hard to do things with little kids and I said it's going on eight years of that and I wonder if it ever ends. Surely my attitude needs to change. I've been trying to enjoy every minute with my sweet baby. She's so busy all the time doing the babies do best dumping, pouring, swirling, smashing, squishing, pushing, and making messes of everything. I feel like my obsessive-compulsive has kicked into higher gear lately which may or may not be true. I just wish I were different. I wish I didn't care. I wish my house could be a wreck and I'd be fine but I can only handle it for a short time and then I go nuts and start ignoring everything except cleaning the house. We've been watching Lucy; Jeanette's dog for a week and a half and Juni will not stay out of Lucy's food. She's just trying to be helpful, but she makes such a mess. She's always asking for food and then when I give it to her, she gives it to Lucy, or smears it everywhere, or dumps it out, or pours it from one dish to another. She's a perfect baby. And I am such an imperfect mom. I want to scream. 
I'm also in another food crisis. It seems to never end. I went to a gas station tonight with Paul and Eirik so Paul can get a drink. When we are inside Paul turned me and said "this is dinner". Since the kids are at a birthday party and were headed to a school function right after we pick them up, it didn't seem like too bad of an idea, so I grabbed a warm burrito and a pizza stick and a corndog for me and Juni and Eirik, (and some cookies and pop).  And as I pay, I feel like a failure; like I'm letting them down and letting myself down and being a victim of our unhealthy society. All week I tried to serve myself and my kids healthy food. I've been extra conscious about sugar this week. Today as I ate a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats with almond milk, feeling pretty good about my healthy choice, I read the sugar content and realized I was eating 18 g of sugar and one bowl. And then I realized almost everything else I ate today had added sugar. How can we ever get away from it because it is so pervasive in our society? Sugar is such a mainstay. And as I think about how sugar and screens are raising my kids I feel overwhelmed and trampled down because there's no fighting it. I can never offer something they will want more than candy and TV. From the moment Teig wakes up it is immediately a series of negotiations about screen time and food. "Can I eat a cookie? Can I watch Wild Kratts?" "A cookie is not breakfast food and you know the rules about screen time." Despite being firm and steadfast about screen time rules, the battle wages incessantly. I can never give them enough screen time. And I am always the bad guy when I turn it off. It results in screams and anger almost every time despite the fact that they loose more screen time if they throw a tantrum about turning it off.  The issue is pervasive though.  I'm no different. I rarely rarely watch TV, but I find that I'm on a screen every single moment that I have the opportunity to be; just like my kids are.  I'm not at on screens for entertainment  but to work, to do projects, to be productive, and to learn things . I find myself being addicted to knowing the answers to my questions immediately. I know my children are experiencing the same things. We are experiencing an absolute thirst and hunger for immediate answers, stimulation, and entertainment.  It brings up so many questions for me about what it's going to do to us and I think constantly about how different we are from any generation that's come before us. We have nothing to compare this to. We have no way to know how raising our children with an iPhone in their hand is going to affect them.  We can only guess. We can only hope it won't be horrible for them. We can only hope it will be good for then somehow. Pediatricians say one hour a day of screen time is what's recommended. I know very few people who really do that now. I believe that our brains crave knowledge. They dislike boredom. We naturally like to know answers. There is nothing wrong with filling our children's brains with answers from screen time... or is there?   I feel like what we are experiencing is unprecedented.  Experiential knowledge is different and in many ways far superior to knowledge acquired from a screen. I'd like to give my kids real experiences and make sure their brains develop in lots of ways and not in a narrow path created by visual stimulation, but society is so different now.  How can I provide enough experiences that can compete with screens? I can't.  It is pretty amazing that we can experience things like being under the water with sharks through watching it on TV because most of us wouldn't ever get to do that in real life.The fact that my grandfather is terrified enough of the Internet that he refuses to have it in his house is fascinating and concerning because I don't want to discount his opinion completely just because he's old. On the other hand, I'd rather go without heat than the internet. Well almost. Thank you internet for being you; for being so outrageously awesome! How can I be so torn about this? I guess I'm terrified of addiction and I lack faith in my kids. Is that what it comes down to? Is it that I don't believe they have the ability to learn to self monitor?
I started doing jedi/ yoga training every Sunday morning to teach them to breath, relax, find their center, believe in themselves and learn stress managment skills. I like it. So far they don't love it, but will still do it with me. I want to stop the battle over screen time and give them more of what they want without feeling guilty. Making them hate me is not the answer. Having contention over it is not working. Maybe giving it so much negative attention by asking them to turn it off or keep it off so much is making the problem far worse. The problem is, if I don't regulate, that is all they will do...litterally. So, what's a mom to do? 

Hot tub talk

In the hot tub Teig said "Did you know this is a booby?" Eirik condescendingly told him, "No that's a buoy." "Oh yeah, there's no such thing as a booby."

Hide and seek

While playing hide and seek Teig told us that we could count to 12 miles per hour. 

Tasmanian tigers

"Did you know that Tasmanian tigers don't have a jaw? Heavenly father forgot to make one. Did you know that they run really fast?"

Teig

A huge update

I feel like I've been moving nonstop for days. I am doing way too much again. I'm helping my parents with this new remodel in Salt Lake City. I've done over 70 drawings for this house by hand. And made tender selections for finishes in and things. I really enjoy this kind of work but it's difficult to do from a distance. Not being on location has been a drawback to this project. 

I'm also taking a painting class from an artist I've admired for many years. His name is Michael Orwick and I feel absolutely blessed that I get to meet with him and have him critique my work. I've been to two classes so far and already I can tell my understanding of my materials and use of values and color has improved immensely. I can't wait to dig in and push more paint around. I wish I could be Painting right now. 

We threw a Halloween party last week. It took a lot of energy for 4 kids and 5 costumes and lots of friends and lots of fun spooky food. it was a blast but I feel like I'm still paying for it.  I'm pretty tired today. 

My brother Michael has been in town for the past three days. His ex- girlfriend is due with his baby. He's here for the delivery and to be a part of the baby's life. I've been as involved as I can be since he's been here. I've been helping him get acquainted with the hospital, get baby gifts together, meet with his lawyer and being emotional support where I can be. It's been sad and a bit overwhelming for me being involved in the details of the sad situation. 

While Michael has been here he's been helping me with a few house projects as well. He put together the monkey bars in our basement today and got me some shelves in my new studio. He's gonna hang my new light fixtures and help me stain my new dining table and a few other odds and ends I've been hoping to get finished. It sure is nice to have a handyman around! 

Last weekend Paul and I went to Seattle for an OMED conference. We got to visit with Tash and Brandon Bunnage and Amy and Brandon Miner. They are two of the most fun couples we know to hang out with. I loved their company and our discussions. it was fun to relate with them about being in kind of the same situations as they are in life and discussing how we're all dealing with the questions and changes that have come with this stage of our lives. I've ordered a stack of books to read based on recommendations from my friends and three or four of them are from this weekend with these smart people. 

This week Paul and I voted in the midterm election. The Republicans swept the Senate. It's pretty big deal for a country I think.

I've been enjoying a monthly art night with my group of artist friends. I look forward to it more than any other activity. Last week we did fused glass and the month before that we did painting. The month before that we tried calligraphy and a previous session was life drawing and Joren was our model. 

After we paint or draw whatever we do, we sit around and talk and I admire these women immensely. I respect their views of life, religion and raising kids and I'm always excited to hear their opinions and see what projects they've been working on. 

In addition to designing this huge house with my family and working on my painting skills I've also been working on Paul's website for his practice. I've scheduled a photo shoot with a great local photographer and I'm working out the details of that so that we can have some lifestyle photos for the website with our team members. I'm also redesigning the whole website with our web designer. It's a lot of work. I know it's going to be worth it though. With me being so busy with so many projects my poor kids sometimes have to get pretty creative to stay busy. I wish I were able to focus better on them. 

Junie is 20 months old. She is very physical she loves to climb and crawl and walk and run and do all things with her body but she does not like to talk. I wish she would begin talking. She does say mom and dad and she can sign six or seven things but I'm anxious for her to start communicating more with us. I'm also anxious for her to stop throwing every meal I give her on the floor and stop putting everything in her mouth!. This stage will end I'm sure. And I just try to dress her really cute every day so I treat her really well because when she's in a darling hat and cute boots I find I'm happier and nicer to her. I know that sounds dumb but hey whatever works. She's an absolute sweetheart and does cute things to help us like brings her shoes gives everybody hugs blows kisses all the time and tries to help whenever she can. She likes to help me load the dishwasher. She also has the cutest laugh and the boys love to make her laugh just to hear it. 

Teig is four. He is signed up to go to Friendship Farms Preschool twice a week. He loves it when he goes. But the past few weeks he's been complaining every time I take him and he has been begging me to stay home.  I've decided to take him out of preschool because he has a whole year next year of attending and it's not worth the fight for me to try to make him go. Teig is at that adorable stage for everything he does is absolutely unbearably cute. Tonight he looked up at me when I said I'm gonna pick you up and swing you around and he said "but I'm afraid of heights" in the cutest little sincere voice ever. He loves to help. He loves to play animal jam, a fun animal game on the computer. He loves to use the phone to play games. And he loves magna tiles and squeaky's and puzzles and boardgames. He also enjoys soccer and volleyball. When I ask him what he wants to be when he grows up he says "Everything. I'm going to be an arter and a skater and a doctor and a swimmer and a basketballer." He has great confidence and he is the sweetest thing in the world.

Joren has decided that without a doubt he's going to be a famous artist when he grows up. Every day when he comes home from school he gets out his paint and he paints or draws. Every morning before he leaves he says "mom you are my art buddy. Let's do art when I get home." He has been making paintings and drawings that blow me away. I am amazed by his talent and his love for it. I promised him I'd never let him run out of paper and it made him ecstatic with joy. I also took him to the art store and bought him two canvases and a new pallet. He said he was gonna save his canvases and I told him "no, I want to fill them up because I'm gonna buy you two more canvases on your birthday at the end of the month. He was thrilled and filled them up right away. 

Eirik is busy with tae kwon do twice a week, enrichment class which is an exercise class after school, and a drama class. His homework is getting more vigorous. He gets to do reading responses on a blog online for this class. He's doing great in his spelling tests and his math tests and pushing his limits in many areas of his life. He loves graphic novels and tries to do as little work as possible. He has such a kind heart and wants to serve and do what's right he's incredibly onnoxious and yet clever as can be at the same time. He has been drawing pictures of wolves. I think I have about 20 drawings that look almost identical of a wolf chasing down some kind of animal cornering it in a borough. Actually some of them show the wolf eating the animal with blood dripping everywhere. He's a little obsessed with the predator/ prey relationship. Eirik seems to have friends at school and his teacher says he's always paired off with somebody. However at home he tells me that he feels like something is missing and he says he has no friends. I hope he finds his one special friend soon. He's a lot like Paul is and Paul was lucky to have his cousin as his best friend who was always around. I feel like that's what Eirik needs. 

 I feel lucky to have a new good friend who lives around the corner from me. Her son is Eirik's age and so she comes over often with her son who comes home and stays for an hour after school before she gets home from work. She is pretty great and I enjoy just having another woman around to hang out with.  I've been so busy that I haven't taken the time or made the time to work hard on the relationships here that would develop into great friendships for me. I miss my good friends from Michigan. There are wonderful women here but I still feel like I'm new to Oregon at a year and a half out and to be honest, I've been sort of an introvert. My kids need so much and tear the house apart so completely that preparing the house for company exhausts me so much that I rarely make it happen. Also we have only lived here for 3 1/2 months. And I'm still trying to get it decorated how I like it. I still have many projects around the house I'd like to do to make it feel like it's ready for guests. I worry that my perspective might be completely skewed because I spend too much time on Pinterest looking at beautiful homes. Obviously that's not real life and when I visit my friends houses I realize how abnormal I am and how obsessed I am with Art and design. It's sometimes eye-opening to realize that I am different than most people in this respect. I live in my own little bubble sometimes. 

Paul's practice has been going great. He's working on opening a second location. He's also been working out and eating very little and losing tons of weight. He is looking better than he has since we first got married. He's also spent a ton of money on clothes from banana republic and Frye boots and a motorcycle jacket and new sunglasses and cologne. He's living up having a little extra cash. It's pretty awesome. I just love not stressing you out every five dollar purchase. It's absolutely fantastic to have money in the bank and no student loans left to pay off. Yep we paid them all off last month!! I feel like it's a miracle. 

I hired a house cleaner last month. I had never done it before. Too darling young girls came to my house and as I showed them around I saw them calculating in their head the cost to clean my house. At the end of the tour they told me the number which was twice as much as I expected. They told me it will only be half that much in the future but there's kind of a lot to do today. I feel like I'm a good housekeeper myself but then I look at my house and I wonder what happened? 😄 I guess being so busy with so many projects limits the time I'm willing to give to mopping and dusting and cleaning toilets. It was lovely to have help! 

I'm looking forward to having my parents here for the next week or two to work on this house project. I hope they spend some good quality time with my kids. It will be really good for all of us to have them around! I miss my parents so much. 

Another event happened last week that has had  big impact on me is the passing of my dear friend/mentor and father figure David Parvin. It came as a complete shock. I found out on Facebook that he had passed away. It happened just a day after he posted something about one of his projects. I sat in complete disbelief staring at my phone unable to comprehend that he was gone. They are not having a funeral for him just a private family service. I was sad to not be able to go and pay my respects. I held a little memorial with just Paul and I on Saturday morning. I pulled out all the newspaper clippings and articles he I have saved over the years from him and all the letters he's writtento me and I read them all. I pulled out all the sculptures he's given me in the body cast that I have that we made together. I also dug through my drawers and got all my pictures out of David and I together. I was flooded with memories of the good times that we had. He was one of those people who goes out of his way to help people tremendously. He was extremely kind and generous to me. He was always looking out for my best interests giving me good advice, giving me allowance, paying me extra, calling me on the phone, and paying me nice, and as I felt, undeserved complements. After I married Paul I stopped communicating with David as frequently. Paul never agreed with my relationship with him since I did pose for sculptures for David in high school it seemed inappropriate to Paul. David was never an appropriate with me but out of respect for Paul I kept my relationship with David more distant than David would've liked. My regrets for not calling when he asked me to call him more frequently came flooding over me as I learned of his death. David was an atheist and I wonder about what the afterlife is like for him. For his goodness and generosity I am sure he will be rewarded greatly. I wish I knew what happens after this life, as we all do. I hope he knows of my love for him and my gratitude for what he did to make me who I am.  I hope he forgives me for my distance. I hope he knows every time I hear Enya or Enigma or Oh Holy night, I think of him. I hope he knows that so much of my success is an artist comes from his encouragement and his belief in my talent. I hope you find great joy and love and that he is able to create all the things he wanted to that he never got to create here on this earth. I will miss him greatly. 

Halloween

Kids 8, 6, 4 and almost 2 are the best for Halloween fun. Halloween on a Friday is also great. There were no school dress up parties and only one night of Halloween. Everything on one night is also awesome! I invited people over. I made a bunch of fun spooky food and we had dry ice. The costumes were fun and the people were fun. Our neighborhood is amazing. Julien, our neighbor behind us does a super spooky forest and they all dress up. Tons of trick or treaters and people everywhere. We went up to the church trunk or treat for a short time, then came home for games movies and more trick or treating.

New Room Reveal for Emma

My poor 15 year old nice Emma was diagnosed with Leukemia 1 month ago. She has been getting chemotherapy at the childrens hospital and today she gets to come home. She wont be home long but her family wanted her to have a great time while she is at home. They asked me to redecorate her room for her arrival. We all expected her next Friday but 2 days ago they let me know that it would be a week early so I have been on GO mode getting it ready for her. I'm really excited for her to see it!
I hope she likes it.

Promises and primary program

"Break your heart and  cross to die??"
Teig

Today was the primary program. I'm the music leader. I hoped for another awesome story like the time that Teig held up his teachers giant quad scriptures over his head during "scripture power" and fell over backward with the weight of it." but nothing like that happened. There were no funny snags. The kids were well behaved and we all got lots of compliments. Teig started off the whole program by climbing up on the stool and craning his neck to reach the microphone and saying in his adorable tiny voice, "Our primary theme this year is Families are forever." Joren's part was, "Families are necessary part of God's plan. I love my family because I like to snuggle with them." Eirik's part was, "I know that families are part of Gods plan. I can show my love to my family. I show my love to my mom by making her breakfast in bed. I show my love to my dad by helping with the kids. I show my love to Joren by helping with his games. I show love to Teig by letting him count my money over and over. He loves it. I show love to Juni by playing dolls with her."
I arranged a violin duet to play over the singing in the last song. At our only practice it sounded pretty awful, but today it was perfectly lovely. I don't know what happened, but it was just right.
I don't feel like being the singing leader fits me very well. I have to force myself to prepare every week and I trudge through it, but I love the kids so much and enjoy my time with them when I get there. I admire teachers immensely. It is not easy for me. I'm glad today is over and I'm glad that we got to have singing time sitting on blankets and having fun. I stapled song titles to autumn leaves that I threw over the kids. They had to catch them and we sang all fun and easy songs and ate snacks. 

Tooth hurty

Today during primary the sharing time leader called Eirik up because he said he had a story to tell about a time when he was honest. He said, "this is a fish story. One time I had a toothache at school so I had to go to the orthodontist at 2:30. Get it, "tooth hurty." 

It was balsy and inappropriate, but j have to admit it was pretty hilarious.  

Definitions

Teig told me, "Joren is nocturnal. He is awake at night. I'm nonturnal. That means I don't sleep except for naps sometimes."

"This food looks discussing.  What is it?" It's vegetarian and delicious. Eat it." "I can't,  I'm desertarian." said Eirik.

11 years on the 11th

Our best anniversary yet. 10 years was fun but I'll admit, a bit strained. This year was pure joy. We've had so much adjusting to do in the last year and a half with all things new. We both grew in a lot of ways and we grew together too. Having someone say, "I accept you just like you are, no matter what" has to be the best thing in the whole world, right?

Paul picked a restaurant on Division street called Ave Genes for our dinner out. Patty and John took the kids overnight. Did you know you could eat pickled fiddlehead ferns??? I'm not kidding! And they were delicious. I was amazed by all the food. I mean, I was shocked by the flavors and varieties. We had a melon salad with toasted pine nuts and jalapeños! It was crazy good. We had polenta and homemade pastas with homemade sausage. I can't say enough how delicious it was. The restrooms were a whole amazing experience as well. All the fixtures and plumbing were imported antique marble and brass pieces from Italy. The whole menu was in Italian so we basically went to Italy for our anniversary but it got even better from there. We sauntered outside on a warm Portland summer night, walked past the wall painted with sunflowers and what do we hear?, live Parisian cafe music. We had to stop and have a visit to the country of love and indulge in a key lime tart o let and creme and fraise while we listened to the musicians. 

After we walked around more and found 15 other restaurants we can't wait to try, I told Paul he couldn't top this date; Paris and Italy in one night, but then he offered to take me to Home Depot and, well he "had me at Home".  

That would have been a good date if it had to stop there but then Paul announced that for his gift he was going to take the kids to the beach for the weekend and let me stay home alone, by myself, solitary, just me for 2 whole days. I honestly can't remember the last time I was alone for longer than a quick car drive. I have a pretty amazing man. Thank you for such a great year. It is truly getting better with time, this lovely life we have made. 

Logic

"Teig, I asked,  "Where do you think you lived before this earth?"  "I lived in an alien space ship and floated in space in a rover."  "How did you get to earth?" I asked.  "He brought me here. He was a peach black alien with black eyes and he dropped me off. I was walking around and I found a nice house and went inside. Eirik was there and he said, "you look nice." I was a baby. Then Joren said, "you should stay here.""

Then I started singing, "I lived in Heaven  long time ago, this is true..." the primary song. Teig interupted me and said, "Ya, but I lived in an alien space ship."

I said, "Thanks for hanging out with me Teig. You're my favorite." "I'm your favorite too." he replied.

Back to school!

Our boys have been back in school for one week and today Eirik came home in tears saying, "now I remember why I hate school so much! I just hate having people tell me what to do all the time. I want to be in charge of myself."

Then I was talking to Joren in his room. I asked if he wanted me to hang something he brought home from school on his wall and he said,"no, I'm not really the school type mom." I asked him what he meant by that. He said "I'm just not good at it." I asked what he was not good at and after some persuasion he finally said, "I'm just not good at listening. I want to do my own thing and just be me." 

It's going to take some getting used to. I don't know if I've fostered their indipendant free thinking tendencies or if they have just come that way, but they both fight me on just about everything. I don't envy their teachers. We wrote a 4 page letter to Jorens teacher telling him some of his successes and challenges from his previous school teachers hoping it would give her some insight on how to best approach his learning. 

Dizzy

"Did you know that when you get dizzy it is really just the moon and space shaking." Teig

Cactus ambush

Joren woke me up at 5:00AM this morning yelling to me from his room. I groggily made my way to his yelling to discover that his cactus had fallen on him and he was covered in tiny cactus prickles too small to see. He found this tiny cactus and brought it home and put it in water and to our great surprise it sprouted a new arm and grew like crazy! It grew so high it finally fell out of its dish onto Joren.  The prickles were very painful and looked exactly like his tiniest hairs. I had to use tweezers and go over his arms pulling out every possible hair. What a way to wake up for both of us! Poor kid!